Yogic tradition talks about finding the balance between effort and ease in a yoga posture and in life. This bird seemed to have found that balance as it flew. It is not an easy balance to find.
This past week I've been living way too much on the effort side of that equation, and it is exhausting. On the one hand, it is so important for me to fight the temptation to protect myself and hold back with this adoption. I fully, whole-heartedly believe this and have seen this to be true. This is the effort part - the work. And it is vital. We have to flap our wings from time to time. Otherwise, we would all just be letting life happen to us rather than choosing how we want to live it.
My natural tendency in this labor of waiting is self-protection. I have a very busy 19-month-old to distract me full-time. That distraction makes it very easy for me to just coast through this without engaging mentally or emotionally with what's going on - to just let these 4 months go by without choosing to love and risk. Because of this, I have to work even harder to choose to check into the game, to put myself out there and choose to prepare for the birth of our second baby in every way possible. This feels like more work than it did with Douglas.
The biggest reason for this seems to be that preparing for a second child is totally different - everyone has told me this, whether biological or adoptive parents. You're so focused on your little one that it's hard to really prepare for Little One II. And even when you do prepare, it looks nothing like it did with your first child. This is normal. But because we are adopting, I put all of this added pressure on myself to prepare emotionally. I feel like I have to work hard - I can't just say, "Oh, it's #2. He's in my belly, so he's fine. He'll know I love him. He'll be ok." I tend to believe (chronically) that things are on my shoulders...ultimately, I know that the Father is the only one who can and will let this precious baby know that He (and we) love him...but I put a lot of pressure on myself to work hard at this.
It also is hard to let the reality of what's going on sink in, because I don't have physical changes in my body to shout at me that "THINGS ARE CHANGING!!! A BABY IS COMING!!"
The flip side of the effort is ease. And it's equally important. Without it there can be no balance. Ease is being where I am at today. This is another yoga lesson that I tell my students all the time. Accept where you are. Acknowledge it without judgment and move on. "What you resist persists". Stop focusing all of your attention on what you don't want. One of my amazing sisters-in-law, Katie, encouraged me not to put so much pressure on myself to feel a certain way. She said that all of this is part of this amazing thing I'm going through. It's all good. She said to just feel it all. Experience it all. Be present.
I feel like I've spent the past week or so trying to get somewhere rather than being present today and just feeling whatever I feel and letting that be ok. I think this is why I envy that bird floating beautifully in the breeze. If I picture myself as a bird right now, I picture a little bird flapping its wings like crazy, going in the opposite direction of the wind. Fighting like a fish trying to swim upstream. When I saw that bird something in my soul cried out, "That's all I want! That's what I'm meant to do!" It made me realize that Katie was really, really right. I was fighting way too hard, making way too much effort. I knew this at the time, but I still felt too guilty about not feeling a certain way about our baby, so I fought it for a few more days (and, knowing me, I will continue to fight it on and off for quite some time!). But this isn't the way that I want to live. That beautiful display of grace that I saw yesterday is the balance of effort and ease...and that's how I want to live.
So here is an attempt to be where I am at today - to acknowledge the emotions that I feel without judgment. It is also an attempt to stay blatantly honest on this blog. I wrote about how love is a choice and that I always want to choose love. But I want you to know that it's hard as hell for me and it doesn't always go well.
I feel sad because I don't feel as giddy and freakishly excited in the same ways that I did before Douglas was born. I feel guilty because I go hours at a time sometimes without even thinking about the fact that we're having a baby in 4 months. I feel afraid because I think, "Well, maybe the reason I'm not feeling attached yet or not able to wrap my head around this as much as last time is because this isn't going to work." Most of all, I feel afraid that my baby doesn't or won't know that I love him - that he feels all alone because I'm distracted and not feeling the love yet the way that I want to. (I know that this doesn't even make sense, but fear never heeds logic or truth).
Judging and fighting these emotions is what makes me feel like the crazy bird flapping furiously against the wind. I need to let myself be where I am at today. I need to accept the emotions, feel them, and at the same time open myself to loving this baby and preparing for him. In time. And in ways that feel natural. And what feels natural will be different this time than it was last time. And that's ok.
So I'm going to try to be like that bird. More ease, much less effort. Ridin' the wind, baby.
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